8 Books About Friendship That Keep It Real

Infused with New York Times-bestselling author Anna Quindlen’s trademark wit and insight, More Than Enough follows a woman grappling with the unexpected results of an ancestry test—and the journey that leads her to reconsider the true meaning of family and friendship. 

Through all the ups and downs, Polly Goodman, a high school English teacher, has had her book club. This group of women, along with her veterinarian husband, has become her closest friends—supporting Polly in her job, her complicated relationship with her mother, and most recently, her journey with IVF. 

When one of the members jokingly gives her an ancestry test, Polly is shocked to discover a match with a stranger. Just when it seems like all hope is lost, the women in her book club will show Polly what real friendship looks like. 

A “lush, beautiful novel about the family we make,” Vernice and Annie, two motherless daughters raised in Louisiana, have been inseparable since childhood (New York Times Book Review).

But all that changes when Vernice’s aunt takes her to Atlanta in the wake of her mother’s death, where she attends Spelman College and joins a loyal sisterhood of Black women. 

Whereas Annie, abandoned and looking for a way to fill the emptiness, embarks on a journey that will test her in more ways than one. 

The Celebrants is the perfect addition to this list as it “not only serves as a reminder that life is indeed short, but also pays tribute to the healing power of friendship in times of great upheaval or loss” (San Fransico Chronicle). 

Twenty-eight years have passed since their college graduation, and five years since Jordan Vargas last saw his friends. Jordy, Naomi, Cragi, and Marielle are all off trying to be adults—whatever that means. 

The one constant over the years has been their reunion in Big Sur, where they celebrate being alive—if not for themselves, for each other. But this year is different; Jordan has news that threatens to change the pact forever.

Selected as one of the New York Times’ 100 Best Books of the 21st Century, Veronica is set amidst the raw, glittery background of 1980s New York. Alison is a young model who has just set her career on fire, while Veronica is an over-the-top, middle-aged office temp. 

After a chance encounter, a friendship will blossom, moving from love, egotism, sacrifice, and everything in between. Oscillating between the present and past, “[Veronica] is a masterly examination of the relationship between surface and self, culture and fashion, time and memory” (New York Times Books Review). 

Since kindergarten, Jen and Riley have been attached at the hips, and as adults, they’re as close as ever—even if their lives have taken different paths.

Jen, who married young, is finally pregnant after years of trying, while Riley has finally achieved her dream of becoming a television journalist—the first Black female anchor in their town’s top news channel.

But one day, they find themselves on emotionally opposite sides of the fallout of a police shooting: Jen’s husband, a city police officer, was holding the gun against an unarmed Black teenager. 

Six months pregnant, not only is Jen’s life spiraling out of control, but her friendship with Riley, when she begins covering the story. “[A] propulsive, deeply felt tale of race and friendship,” We Are Not Like Them is a powerful testament to a friend’s love (People).

Winner of the Lambda Literary Award for lesbian Debut Fiction, Bird-Eyes follows a sixteen-year-old runaway named Latisha in the early 1960s, when she finds herself sentenced to a mental hospital. 

There, she meets Anna, an older deaf woman. Although she’s forbidden to communicate in sign language, Anna teaches Latisha. Soon after, the unlikely pair become best friends, in what is a moving meditation on the healing effects of friendship in a hostile world.

It’s the summer of 1986 in a small Scottish town. James and Tully have struck up an unforgettable friendship over music, films, and a shared desire not to be like their fathers. School is out, and they’ve decided to head to Manchester for the weekend, where everything seems to be happening. 

There, they promise one another that life will be different. Thirty years have passed, and Tully calls James with news that will put these lifelong friends to the ultimate test. 

“A beautiful ode to lost youth and male friendship written by one of our sharpest observers of modern masculinity,” Mayflies is not to be missed (Douglas Stuart, Booker Prize-winning author of Shuggie Bain). 

The winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, The Sympathizer is one of the most memorable books of the twenty-first century. The story begins with a blood pact between the narrator and his two best childhood friends. 

But with the advent of the Vietnam War, these once inseparable boys, now men, will be forced to take sides. What follows is “a cerebral thriller [centered] around a desperate expat story that confronts the existential dilemmas of our age” (Washington Post). 

Growing up in the 1960s in Pasadena, California, Rebecca Madden and her charming, impulsive friend Alex bonded over their shared ambition of finding themselves, away from their mothers’ expectations—and amid a cultural revolution.

One hot summer night before their last year of college, a single act changes everything. Years later, Rebecca is grappling with the pieces of that evening, leading her towards a life-changing realization. 

A moving tale of “two girls, the women they become, and the bond they forge that endures into the next generation” (Ellen Feldman, author of Scotsboro).